H. P. Wasson and Company
| Department store | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1874 |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Headquarters | Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Products | men's, women's and children's clothing, footwear, jewelry, beauty products, bedding, housewares and home furnishings. |
| Website |
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H. P. Wasson & Company Building
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| Location | 2 W. Washington and 2 N. Meridian Sts., Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Coordinates | 39°46′2″N 86°9′30″W / 39.76722°N 86.15833°WCoordinates: 39°46′2″N 86°9′30″W / 39.76722°N 86.15833°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1937 |
| Architect | Rubush & Hunter; Graham, Anderson, Probst, & White |
| Architectural style | Art Deco |
| NRHP reference # | 97001539 |
| Added to NRHP | December 24, 1997 |
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H. P. Wasson and Company, aka Wasson's, was an Indianapolis, Indiana, based department store chain founded by Hiram P. Wasson. Its flagship store, the H. P. Wasson & Company Building, was built in 1937 and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
H. P. Wasson bought the Bee Hive Drygoods Store in 1874, renaming it nine years later as H. P. Wasson and Company. With the death of H. P. Wasson in 1910, and his son Kenard Wasson in 1912, the store was sold to Gustave A. Efroymson and his brother-in-law Louis P. Wolf. The chain would eventually consist of seven stores with the flagship store located at 2 West Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis.
Efroymson was president of the company from 1912 to 1930.
In 1930, a second store was built on Monument Circle on the site of the former Morton Hotel. The entire second and parts of the third floors of the Monument Circle Annex store were destroyed in a fire on the evening of June 1, 1969.
After the Korean War, Wasson's began to build new stores in the outdoor shopping centers that were being developed in new housing developments on the outskirts of suburban Marion County during the late 1950s and early 1960s. By the early 1960s, first shopping centers and then enclosed malls were being built inside and also in nearby communities outside of Marion County. Branch stores were built in a shopping center in Kokomo and enclosed malls in Anderson and Bloomington. The open air shopping center locations at Eastgate and Kokomo were later converted into enclosed malls.
Louis C. Wolf became president in 1963 upon the retirement of his father Walter E. Wolf, who remained CEO. He was killed in a plane crash in Alaska during a hunting trip while piloting a new single-engine Cesna in August 1967 at the age of 40. Members of his family sold the company in October of the same year to Goldblatt's. Expansion and new development of the firm died upon Louis C.'s death.
In September 1967, Richard L. Glasser was appointed president and CEO while Walter E. Wolf, Sr. remained chairman of the board of directors.
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